[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

This is too easy. There’s a new Pope, so Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. Tell your boss you’re going to mass to pray for the newly anointed Vicar of Christ. Odds are good that you’re not going to mass, so that’s a lie and lying’s a sin. Most churches offer Confession on Saturdays. Just don’t go stepping in front of buses or licking electrical sockets for twenty-four hours and you’ll be fine. (Pro tip: Save time at Confession by cutting in line. Minimal exposure.)

If your boss is Catholic, you’ll be out in seconds flat. If not, you’ll still be out in seconds flat because non-Catholics have no idea when obligations fall. If you aren’t Catholic, pretend you are by Googling and learning a few Latin phrases to say around the office: “May I borrow your stilus?” “Sorry I’m late, hora concursus traffic.” Etc. They’ll get it.

Happy POETS Day and enjoy your work-free afternoon. First, a little verse.

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I put “Australia’s Georgian Poet” in quotation marks in the title because I found them on a website providing a quote from Dominic Sheridan, Professor and/or lecturer at the University of Gdansk in Poland who researches Australian War poets of World War I in particular. “Australia’s Georgian Poet” is itself in quotation marks in the Sheridan quote, so he got it from somewhere too. Whether it was a sobriquet that followed Walter James Turner, one invented by Sheridan, or something quoted from yet an earlier source, I have no idea, but I like it. This is my roundabout way of letting you know I’ve found an interesting new (to me) website called Forgotten Poets of the First World War. There are some five hundred posts going back to 2014 and sourcing at least as far as from wherever they’re based as Gdansk. Worth a look for the curious. Looks useful.